"Cattle dragged and choked...Knocking ‘em four, five, ten times. Every now and then when they´re stunned they come back to life, and they´re up there agonizing. They´re supposed to be re stunned but sometimes they aren´t and they´ll go through the skinning process alive. I´ve worked in four large [slaughterhouses] and a bunch of small ones. They´re all the same."

The descriptions below are from slaughterhouse workers. From the best selling book, 'Skinny Bitch' by Rory Freedom and Kim Barnouin

"A live hog would be running around the pit.It would be just looking up at me and and I'd be sticking, and I would just take my knife and - cut it's eye out while it was sitting there. And the hog would just scream."

"Sometimes I grab it (a hog) by the ear and stick it right through the eye. I'm not just taking its eye out, I'll go all the way to the hilt, right up through the brain, and wiggle the knife."

"Only you just don't kill it, you go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose."

"These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water and start screaming and kicking. Sometimes they thrash so much they kick water out of the tank... Sooner or later they drown."

THE AWFUL TRUTH

Most people don't want to think about where meat comes from. Notice how it's a taboo subject. From early childhood, we've been brainwashed by our society to go into an unconscious trance about 'meat' and what it actually is. We don't talk about that.

The taboo of talking about 'meat'

People don't sit down to dinner and start discussing the circumstances of the life and the death of the animal they are about to eat. That would be considered offensive - why? Why is it considered offensive or inappropriate to talk about the facts of what it is that is being eaten? Why do the majority of people not want to know, hear, see or even talk about it? Why is it that this is about the only subject that parents and teachers don't teach their children? If children do ask adults or start questioning the subject they are usually given some abrupt answers to shut them up and move onto a 'nicer' subject. How many schools take their children on an excursion to the abattoir? How many children get to go to a battery hen farm or a factory pig farm? These places are out of bounds to the general public. Not only that, we never see images of them on TV or in magazines. These places are secret. We are not allowed to go there. Why not? What is it we are not supposed to see and why?

We grow up in an unconscious daze about meat, blindly supporting suffering we are not even aware of. It's unfortunately true that some people reach adulthood and don't even know that in Australia most eggs come from battery cage hens, or that around 90% of pigs in Australia exist in factory farms, spending long periods of time in either farrowing crates or sow stalls - small metal and concrete pens where they are unable to move, or that cows milk is not a natural food for humans - it's for baby cows who are stolen from their mothers and deprived of her milk so humans can drink it instead.

Many people hold on to a fantasy that animals killed for meat are killed humanely. Animals at slaughterhouses know what is happening to them. They can smell, hear and feel the fear, terror, violence and death around them. Although there are technologies used to help minimise the terror and agony during slaughter, because of the numbers being killed, the techniques do not always work as they should and sometimes animals can be butchered or boiled (in the case of pigs and chickens) while still conscious. Tragically, for billions of factory farmed animals each year, the day of slaughter may be the best day of their life, as it will end the endless torment of their physically and psychologically horrendous existence they have endured in factory farms.

Because of the vast numbers of animals killed every day it is impossible for them to be given painless deaths. The U.S. Department of Agriculture documented humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, where inspectors found hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.” Because of improper stunning methods and extremely fast line speeds, many pigs are still alive when they are dumped into scalding-hot hair-removal tanks—they literally drown in scalding-hot water. This can happen in slaughterhouses in any country.

The concept of humane slaughter is used to keep people in ignorance and an excuse used by individuals to stay in denial about the reality of the pain, fear, and terror experienced by animals in slaughterhouses. Many people cling to this belief so they can continue eating meat without feeling that they are the cause of any suffering. Ask yourself, if someone wanted to kill you but promised they'd do it humanely, would you say, "Sure that's OK, go right ahead"? Every sentient being will fight to the end for their life.

What two former beef farmers have to say about 'Humane Slaughter'

Two American men who spent much of their lives as beef farmers have seen and experienced farm animal 'production', transportation and slaughtering first hand.

Harold Brown is a former beef farmer and his work involved driving cattle, performing castrations, dehorning and butchering farm animals. He also worked in the dairy industry for three years. What he has to say now, "I have often heard the word 'humane' used in relation to meat, dairy, eggs, and other products like cosmetics. I have always found this curious, because my understanding is that humane means to act with kindness, tenderness, and mercy" and "So no, in my experience, there is no such thing as humane animal products, humane farming practices, humane transport, or humane slaughter."

Howard Lyman is a Former Montana cattle rancher. "My life experience has given me a better understanding of what is happening, and what a mistake it is to believe there is anything called humane" slaughter" and "I'm sure that it will take many years before the majority of humans learn as I have that actions, and not words, are the true proof of our understanding of the term humane." click to go to his website: The Mad Cowboy

For more information about the belief that animals can be killed humanely: Humane Myth

'Meet Your Meat' Video - Narrated By Alec Baldwin

Please be aware, this video contains graphic and disturbing images.

The reality

"Slaughterhouse", 1997 "Before they reach their end, the pigs get a shower, a real one. Water sprays from every angle to wash the farm off them. Then they begin to feel crowded. The pen narrows like a funnel´ the drivers behind urge the pigs forward, until one at a time they climb onto the moving ramp... Now they scream, never having been on such a ramp, smelling the smells they smell ahead. I do not want to over dramatize because you´ve read all this before. But it was a frightening experience, seeing their fear, seeing so many of them go by, it had to remind me of things no one wants to be reminded of anymore, all mobs, all death marches, all mass murders and executions ... " U.S meat inspector.

In Australia pigs and chickens are the animals most greatly exploited with the majority of these animals living in cramped, stinking conditions indoors in unnatural lighting, often unable to even move. Around 90% of pigs live out their lives in factory farms in horrendous conditions. View footage of how pigs live at Save Babe

Chickens

In Australian 2006/2007, 470 million chickens were slaughtered. To find out the reality of what actually happens to Australian chickens read the experience of an Animal Liberationist who worked undercover for three days in a chicken slaughterhouse in Victoria. Chicken Slaughter

Factory Farms

There are over 500 million animals confined like this in factory farms in Australia today. From the Animals Australia website: Despite having the same capacity to suffer, farmed animals such as pigs, sheep, cows and chickens are denied the protection of animal cruelty laws that protect dogs and cats. This means that it is legal to cause suffering to animals raised for food. This includes painful surgical mutilations (without pain relief) and in most cases intensive and unnatural overcrowding or confinement.

"A friend of mine called and said that he had spotted a stalled transport truck with a downed dairy cow inside. I arrived to witness a grisly scene. The poor girl was collapsed on the ground inside the truck, in a 3-inch-deep cesspool of faeces and urine. You could see her wide, terrified eyes staring into nothingness, her entire body quivering ever so slightly. But she was making no sounds. The other cows had trampled her broken body; she had bloody wounds and bright red lesions that were clearly visible through the filth. Her udder was swollen to many times its normal size. We noticed a ghastly sliver of flesh on a gate mechanism above her. (It was later suggested to us that this might have been her tongue. Cows tend to lick the sides of the truck in search of moisture, but when it's a frozen mechanized gate, that desperate attempt can have tragic consequences.) Our poor friend died that day, on the filthy floor of a bloody transport truck. We witnessed her body go cold, and her eyes stop moving. Her entire life had been enslaved and twisted by violence and prejudice

.Quotes from Slaughterhouse Workers from Gail Eisnitz’s book 'Slaughterhouse'

“I seen them take those stunners – they’re about as long as a yard stick – and shove it up the hog’s ass… They do it with cows, too… And in their ears, their eyes, down their throat… They’ll be squealing and they’ll just shove it right down there.”

“Hogs get stressed out pretty easy. If you prod them too much they have heart attacks. If you get a hog in a chute that’s had the shit prodded out of him and has a heart attack or refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole [anus]. You’re dragging these hogs alive, and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I’ve seen hams – thighs – completely ripped open. I’ve also seen intestines come out. If the hog collapses near the front of the chute, you shove the meat hook into his cheek and drag him forward.” “Or in their mouth. The roof of their mouth. And they’re still alive.”

“Pigs on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them – beat them to death with a pipe.”

“These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water and start screaming and kicking. Sometimes they thrash so much they kick water out of the tank… Sooner or later they drown. There’s a rotating arm that pushes them under, no chance for them to get out. I’m not sure if they burn to death before they drown, but it takes them a couple of minutes to stop thrashing.”

“Sometimes I grab it [a hog] by the ear and stick it right through the eye. I’m not just taking its eye out, I’ll go all the way to the hilt, right up through the brain, and wiggle the knife.”

“Only you don’t just kill it, you go in hard, push hard, blow the windpipe, make it drown in its own blood. Split its nose. A live hog would be running around the pit. It would just be looking up at me and I’d be sticking, and I would just take my knife and – cut its eye out while it was just standing there. And this hog would just scream.”

“I could tell you horror stories… about cattle getting their heads stuck under the gate guards and the only way you can get it out is to cut their heads off while they’re still alive.”

“He’ll kick them [hogs], fork them, use anything he can get his hands on. He’s already broken three pitchforks so far this year, just jabbing them. He doesn’t care if he hits its eyes, head, butt. He jabs them so hard he busts the wooden handles. And he clubs them over the back.”

“I’ve seen live animals shackled, hoisted, stuck, and skinned. Too many to count, too many to remember. It’s just a process that’s continually there. I’ve seen shackled beef looking around before they’ve been stuck. I’ve seen hogs [that are supposed to be lying down] on the bleeding conveyor get up after they’ve been stuck. I’ve seen hogs in the scalding tub trying to swim.”

“I seen guys take broomsticks and stick it up the cow’s behind, screwing them with a broom.”

“I’ve drug cows till their bones start breaking, while they were still alive. Bringing them around the corner and they get stuck up in the doorway, just pull them till their hide be ripped, till the blood just drip on the steel and concrete. Breaking their legs… And the cow be crying with its tongue stuck out. They pull him till his neck just pop.”

“One time I took my knife – it’s sharp enough – and I sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of bologna. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt in my hand – I was wearing a rubber glove – and I stuck the salt right up the hog’s ass. The poor hog didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

EARTHLINGS is a feature length documentary about humanity's absolute dependence on animals also illustrates our complete disrespect for these so-called "non-human providers."
The film is narrated by Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix and features music by the critically acclaimed platinum artist Moby

Mad CowboyThe Plain Truth from the former Cattle Rancher who won't eat meat.Click on the 'no bull' to go to the Mad Cowboy website

For a reality check on the numbers of animals being killed click on the clock belowand then when you're into the site, click on 'food'

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